Breaking Badly 3: The Book of Judges

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Speaker 1: Well, welcome back to Breaking Badly. This episode number three our exploration another Book of Judges. Let's start with a quick recap at the end of the last episode Israel compromise written spiritually and consistent and easily seduced by sex, violence and power. They're preparing to re enter the Promised Land for a plan that God has us much much longer term than just them there. This was the same land they had left roughly five hundred years earlier, when Jacob's family went down to Egypt. Back then, they didn't ask God whether they should go. That's important. It's the same tendency, it's the same DNA. They just simply did what seemed right in their own eyes. Ah yeah, Okay, Now they're returning. God's faithful. They haven't been. God is faithful the land they left behind and stay empty, that's the problem. Yep. Welcome to Gospel Rant podcast and Doctor Bill Senor YouTube channel. I'm your host, Doctor Bill Sinyord. We're free wherever you get good podcasts of course on YouTube as well, so please subscribe. One of the fastest ways you can help us grows by leaving your comments below. Thank you sincerely. Also thanks for making Gospel rant one of the top ten percent in the world. Thank you for listening every week. We hope that it helps to regularly hear about God's love that loves the unlovable, love the unlovely, the unworthy and unlikely. And that's all of us on any given day, if we were just a little bit honest, I want to get right into it. After this brief word from our sponsors, we'll be right back Over the centuries, powerful nations had filled the land, seven of them, each one stronger than Israel, each one capable of tossing Israel around the ancient Near Eastern sandbox without much trouble. But something remarkable had happened. The celestial judge, the God of Heaven and Earth, had declared these nations guilty of rebellion against him as nations. Yeah, guilty of what we might call cosmic treason. Clearly guilty, clearly guilty, right, And the sentence had been pronounced judgment. And then came the surprise. Instead of executing that judgment himself, God assigned Israel to carry it out, which frankly seems like a strange choice because Israel wasn't exactly a model nation, a faithful nation. They too were guilty of rebellion right and perhaps worse, they were extremely susceptible to corruption, particularly the seductive religion of the Canaanites, the very ones they're being sentence to be God's instrument of judgment. So sending Israel and the canaan was a bit like sending a lifelong alcoholic who has been sober for only a week back into a bartic in front of their alcoholics. So why Israel, Well, because centuries earlier, God had chosen Israel for a very specific purpose which they were not prepared for, ready for, or equipped for, and didn't have the DNA for. Just like me, they were carriers of a promise, his promise, his promise that one day a savior would come through them from them, not because they earned it or deserved it or were better than everybody else. This was God working through them. He loved them. The hope of the world was growing inside of Israel like a child in the womb. So from their lineage would come the Redeemer who would rescue not just Israel, but the nations, even the Canaanites. And that was the plan. So God sends Israel into the land with one simple requirement. Not military brilliance, not strategic genius, whelming strength, just faithfulness. They were to listen to him, trust him, obey him, submit, and He's going to do the rest, and his name will be glorified. They will still be his son, the instrument of his glory. And if you know anything about the story of Judges, you already know what will happen next. They fail, I mean spectacularly. God's instructions were pretty clear and Deuteronomy, Israel was told, make no treaty with the people of the land, show them no favor, do not intermarry with them, destroy their altars, break down their sacred stones, cut down their ashra, pulls burther idols. Why Because Israel was meant to be set apart a holy people, a people belonging and submitting to God. Everything seemed ready. Israel gathered at Gilgal, where they renewed their covenant with God. They celebrated something like an ancient version of communion. They recommitted themselves to Yahweh, and nearby at Shiloh, the tabernacle had been established. It all sounds so good right there, God's presence was literally in the land with them. Everything should rotate out from Shiloh. Everything like promising, and so the campaign begins. Judah starts strong. The Book of Judges opens with a good sign. After Joshua's death, the Israelites do something wise. They ask the Lord what to do Judges one one, who should go up first to fight against the Canaanites? And God answers, Judah shall go, And Judah does well. At first, they seek God, they step forward at faith, but oh so subtle. Almost immediately, a small little threat of compromise appears here Judges one three. Judah asks the tribe of Simeon to join them in battle. Right, did you catch it? On the surface, this seems perfectly reasonable, strategic even wise the related tribes their territories will overlap. Working together makes sense. But notice something very subtle. God had instructed each tribe to trust him individually. Instead, Judah begins relying on human alliances. It's only a small compromise, right God, But small compromises have a way of growing. Soon, Judah captures a local king named Adenai Bazak. God's command had been clear, execute judgment. Instead, Judah follows common military practice. They mutilate the king, cutting off his thumbs and big toes, but leave him alive. Why Well, maybe they wanted to send a message. Maybe they wanted to parade him around as a trophy. Maybe they will to appear merciful. But in doing this, they quietly placed their own judgment above God's judgment. Imagine a condemned criminal on death row. The judges spoken, the jury's spoken. Justice has been determined, but at the last moment, the executioner decides to ignore the sentence. Let's just injure him instead. That's not mercy as much as it is undermining justice, and it reveals something important. Judah was drifting already. Judah wasn't taking God seriously, at God's lordships seriously, and God didn't explain, right, I get that if they were questioning, so God, why is this? But they don't, not questioning their acting on their own. At first, Judah still experiences some success, but eventually they face a new challenge iron chariots the Philistines. The Philistine military machine was amazing verse nineteen. The Lord was with the men of Judah. They took possession of the hill country, but they were unable to drive the people from the plains because they had iron chariots, and suddenly their courage evaporates. They're not going to Shiloh. Scripture says they could not drive the people from the plains because of the chariots. But remember something, Israel was never strong enough to win these battles on their own. Israel was in this land as a example of what dependence was. This land required dependence. Victory was always going to depend upon God's power, not Israel's strength their technology. Remember what God did to Pharaoh's chariots. God has plenty of strength. But once compromise enters a story, Israel stops experiencing God's empowering presence. Now all they see are present chariots, and they become afraid. Well, if Judah struggle, the northern tribes did even worse. The tribes of Joseph attacked the city of Bethel chapter one, verse twenty two to twenty six. But they never ask God what to do. No visit to Shiloh, no inquiry of the Lord, no being reminded of how much God loves them. They simply act according to what seems strategically wise. I do the same thing. They even make a deal with a Canaanite man to gain entrance to the city, and he helps them conquer it, and in return they spare him and his family, And again it sounds reasonable and merciful. Joshua had made a similar arrangement with Rahab at Jericho, right, but Rayhab had turned to Yahweh. This man had not. In fact, after being spared, he simply leaves and builds another Canaanite city somewhere else. It's like a doctor removing a tumor, only to transplant it somewhere else in the body. The disease remains. So from this point forward, the narrative deteriorates quickly. As the story moves north geographically, Israel's success decreases dramatically. In a brilliant bit of storytelling, the editor presents the increasing deterioration of Israel's faith and subsequently the effectiveness of the rest of the northern campaign. There are consequences to choices narratively. The further north you go, the more failure of Israel to conquer the land. Manassa, Ephrium and Zebulin not only failed to drive out the Cataanites, but allow them to live among them. They made them slaves Verse twenty seven. Asher and Naphthali failed even further. Not only did they not drive them out, The editors said that here it was the Israelites who lived among the Canaanites Verses thirty two. Then the hapless Danites who not only didn't drive out the Canaanites, it's now Israel that lives in a distance verse thirty four. Then the editor's narratives slap in the face. It was supposed to be a new nation of Israel with defined geographical boundaries, but the only people who had national boundary were the Amorites verse thirty six. The boundary of the Amorites was from Scorpion Pass to Ceylon beyond. So at this point the story takes on the feeling of a courtroom drama Judges two one to three. An angel of the Lord arrives like a prosecuting attorney. He reminds Israel of their covenant, which implicitly includes how much God adores them. I brought you out of Egypt, I gave you this land. I told you to not make a treaty with the people this land, but you did. You didn't tear down their altars, And here comes the verdict, I will not drive them out before you. They will become thorns in your sides. Their gods will become stairs. Thorns and stairs two images are very powerful. Thorns are painful irritants. They prevent rest, They drain energy. They make life harder than it should be. Snares trap us. They slowly enslave us. Israel would eventually enslave the Canaanites, but in time, the Canaanite religion would enslave Israel, exactly as God warned. When Israel hears the verdict, they cry out, they weep, and the place where this happens becomes known as bokim, which means weeping. Then they offer sacrifices to the Lord, but something feels off. There's emotion, but there's no expectation of any change. There's no confession of specific sin, no renewed obedience, and from this point on, something tragic happens. Israel just stops seeking God. Shiloh remains, the sanctuary is still there. God's presence ritualistically is still available there, but the people ignore him. They begin living entirely according to what seems right in their own us. Is this righteous punishment? Is it condemnation? Sharing partly but not what we do regularly. Remember, God's love is for the unlovable, the unlovely, the loved, the unworthy, the hurting, the unlikely, So it's better to see this as a lover wooing back broken, wounded, hurting former slaves who just can't be loved yet. They're badly wired. They've been slaves for generations, right, they're badly wired. They need rewiring. The Holy Spirit does that, but they need to learn about that. The moral is that when God finds us like Israel, we can't experience God's love. We won't. Our brains are subconscious. We're too broken, we're too afraid of relationships, we're too afraid of love, or we're afraid of not being loved. So we need a power greater than our own choice to make us loved and me too. I can't just strain and make it happen. I need power from God. I can see in my life where something like this happened. I took it as God busting me better. It was God's opening his arm and making his faith available to me, giving me power to look up and with the Holy Spirit in our inner being. Christians today we have a huge advantage, and this is Ephesians three. Paul, I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the saints, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge. Then you may be feeled to the measure of all the fullness of God power in order to experience it. Because I've got fortresses in my brain that are protecting it from being hurt, but it also prevents me from being loved very insightful by Paul. So if you feel these thorns and snares after listening to this, you think you might have them, ask God for power. God, make me feel your power, not help, I don't know what that is. Make me feel your power through the spirit and my inner being, so that I can begin to feel the love of Jesus and so begin to disempower the thorns and snares. This is hope because Jesus came to deal with everything we've done that was right in our own eyes. At the cross. He took the judgment we deserve, which means our bochem, our place of weeping. It becomes Shiloh again, a place where we meet God, a place of restored relationships. Yeah, all right, what's next? I will let you know after this brief word from our sponsors. Got a new book coming out, Good Enough Parents. Parenting is hard. Too often Christian parents feel like they're messing it up, ruining their kids. So I've pulled together eighteen easy, helpful, biblical, neuroscientifically informed, very doable tips that can help, no shame the lecturing. Bottom line, parents, if you're feeling this love of God that we've been talking about, your kids will notice the difference. You'll become a better, more good enough parent. Yeah, you can get that on Amazon. It'll be on Kindle as well as audible sometime in this summer. Yep. Get copies of your church Bible study book club. They're gonna thank you. Yep. And other family members who are parents. Yep. All right, thanks again for listening to breaking Badly. We'll see you next time. Take our child of God